


Wish Her Away

by Regency



Series: Angels By Another Name [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/F, Gen, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Supernatural Elements, Weird fic, old fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 10:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4621839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angels lose themselves when they're assigned to new charges and their old charges lose them. Liv's decided she's not quite done with Casey Novak yet. But there may not be a Casey Novak left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

                Something was off today, Olivia could feel it.  She’d driven to work with an anxious cloud hovering above her head and her eyes on the rear-view the entire way.

                This wasn’t going to be her kind of day.

                She stepped into the bullpen at 1-6 to see Elliot back at his desk.

                Frowning, she asked, “What are you doing here? I thought you were due in court on the Bailey case.”

                Elliot leaned back in his chair with a shrug.  “Novak requested a continuance and the judge granted it.  We reconvene tomorrow at ten.”

                Liv stowed her jacket and took a seat behind her desk.  “She give a reason?”

                “Nope, just said she had personal business and needed a continuance. When I followed her out to ask if there was anything I could do, she was already gone.  Last time I saw her, she looked pretty spooked, or at least worried. Must have been bad, whatever it was.”

                “Yeah,” Liv agreed quietly.  Something about this didn’t sit well with her.  Casey wasn’t one to just skip out for no reason.  Judges were finicky bastards on a good day; one did not test their patience by requesting a continuance on a controversial case like Bailey’s.  There was no silencing the warning bells sounding at the back of Liv’s mind at this point.

                “The weird thing is she was right in front of me leaving the courtroom.  There was a bunch of reporters waiting outside and she managed to avoid both them and me.  Don’t know how she did it, but I’d love to learn that trick.”

                “Same here.”  Liv tapped a few keys in a false start to a report that had been awaiting her attention for over a week.  It was a false start all right; she minimized the window and opened a new email page.  She had the sudden urge to speak to Casey and the feeling that a phone call wasn’t going to do the trick.

                _‘Everything all right?’_ was all she could manage when she let her fingers do the talking. Her gut told her that everything wasn’t coming up roses wherever Casey was. Her gut always told her that, though, since in her line of work nothing was ever just fine.  She almost hoped she was just being paranoid.  She almost knew better.

                Having lost one ADA—and friend and more—she wasn’t prepared to lose another.  If she had to be the one to take the bullet, she wasn’t about to watch Casey disappear. Twice was just too often to lose that big.

                _‘Call me,’_ she added. _‘Please,’_ she didn’t.  Something about that last word gave her away and she couldn’t have that.  No particular reason other than she wasn’t ready. Maybe she wouldn’t ever be.

                She hit ‘Send’ and sat back.  That was something done—something. Sighing, she remembered that she still had more to do. That report and many others were calling her name in screeching tones. _No one mentioned this much deskwork when I first signed up._ She clicked back to the previous screen and began to type in earnest. Before long she was so engrossed in her reports that the time flew by and before she knew it, it was late morning.

                “No new emails,” she murmured to herself. Her worry grew a little more and she chided herself for it. Casey was a grown woman; she had survived a good while without a babysitter, she could probably stand to go a few hours.  Still, it was definitely out of character.

                Before Liv was able to consider just how out of character Casey’s sudden disappearance was, Elliot’s phone rang: a case.  Phone still attached to his ear, he was already up from his chair and reaching for his jacket.  She was behind the eight-ball, the last place she could afford to be.

                She snagged the car keys before he did and took the lead.  He’d fill her in on the way.  That much was always constant, Elliot had her back.


	2. Chapter 2

                After hours spent interviewing children of varying ages with degrees of trauma, and uncooperative Samaritans, Liv could have really used a break.  Even decent coffee would have been a gift.  She got a warm Styrofoam cup of the standard department dreck and a hoard of new witnesses the beat cops on the scene had dredged up.  She could have been less enthused, but it would have been hard.

                Her pitiful mood wasn’t helped by the fact that Elliot had already put in three calls to their ADA with no answer.  He was beginning to look as concerned as she felt.  If things were bad enough not to warrant even a call of explanation, they must have been pretty bad all right.  They needed their ADA today and Casey was their go-to.  It didn’t feel right to even consider asking someone else, but if the situation demanded it…

                Liv snatched the receiver off its cradle and dialed Novak’s cell again.  This was beyond ridiculous.  She tapped her pen on the edge of her coffee cup.  That crap wasn’t doing anything to settle her nerves.  She eventually reached voicemail.  Casey wouldn’t be getting a message.  _What the hell, Casey?_ She hung up and tossed her pen across the desk.  It fell off the edge and skittered God knew where.

                “Great,” she snorted aloud.  “It’s not like I needed that to write or anything.”

                “Relax. She’s gotta come back eventually,” assured Elliot, again sitting back and taking a breather from all the typing.

                “It’s not just about her,” she returned, a tad defensively.

                He raised an eyebrow and smirked.  “It’s mostly about her.” Liv leveled a dark look at her partner and he raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, she’s gotta come back at some point, whatever’s going on with her, and we’ll find out what’s up when she does. No need to worry.”

                “Right.” She bobbed her head in agreement a few times.  Unfortunately, the outside didn’t match the inside; she felt every need to worry.  “You think she’s being threatened?”

                Standing up to stretch, he looked at her with mild amusement. “You think she’s meeting with the Feds? Liv, if she was, we’d know. ADA’s office leaks like a sieve with a hole in it.” He dropped onto the edge of her desk and snagged her copy of the police report.

                She shook her head.  “Not when it shouldn’t.”  She was seriously considering calling up a friend at the Marshal Service to find out.  In fact, she was already holding the phone—hadn’t even thought about it.

                “We’ll see.”  He looked up and said, “And now you can talk to her yourself.”

                Just as he finished, Casey Novak breezed through the doors like a storm being chased. Funny, to Liv, it felt like the storm had just passed.  She took a deep breath, put down the phone, and packed her prior feelings away.  There was no need for them now.

                “I know, I know I’m late. Liv, I just got your call as I was pulling up.”  She unwrapped her scarf from around her neck and exhaled as though she’d held her breath the entire trip.

                Liv got up and perched beside her partner to observe her flustered assistant district attorney. Casey looked tired and worn and sad all at once.  “Took you long enough,” she teased hoping to lighten her mood.

                The strawberry blonde didn’t seem to take her at her humor.  “Longer than intended. Can you catch me up?”  So, they did. With every word, Casey seemed to sag, like the news was her personal load to bear.  She was hurting, clearly so, and Liv was at a loss for what to do.

                Her only recourse was to ask, “You feeling all right, Case?”

                And Casey’s only recourse was to brush her off with a smile that did nothing to convince Liv that she was anything in neighborhood of “fine.”

                Just when she thought she’d have to push the issue, it came time to talk about charges and accountability.  Liv hackles rose a mile when Casey asked, “So, what does she want? Immunity in exchange for telling us the names of all the regular customers and all the kids involved? Get her to give me something solid and I’ll consider it. Otherwise, she’ll be charged as an adult for her part in all this.”

                Then, they fought. It felt like fifteen rounds, though it couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of minutes. By the end, Casey seemed pinched and slightly wounded, but she carried on like nothing was wrong. She’d relented a bit and declared her terms.  The girl could be saved but it would never come free.  Truthfully, that was more than Liv felt she had the right to ask; still, she’d asked—and Elliot had had her back again.

                In a blink, Casey had gone striding out the door and out of sight, yet not out of mind.  Liv didn’t feel okay with this, any of it.  Contrary to the way she and Casey usually went toe to toe over vics, she felt like she’d pushed too hard this time, like she’d made their ADA the bad guy when all she was doing was her job.

                She looked at El who was still watching her. “I need to apologize,” she admitted regretfully.

                “You’d better hurry before the elevator gets here.” He nodded towards the doors and she was off. It didn’t take long to spot her at the end of the hall. She was the only one waiting for the elevator for a change.  Red hair and legs that reached all the way to the floor, no, she wasn’t hard to spot at all.  She turned when Olivia called her name.

                There were too many shadows on her face.  Liv had to be kidding them both; Casey wasn’t just tired anymore, Casey was fading right in front of her.  But at this moment, Casey was smiling and Liv somewhat vainly hoped it was because of her.

                Casey opened the floor with a joke and Liv could breathe again, feeling like maybe she wouldn’t be the straw that broke her back, like maybe her back could be saved.

                “I just wanted to say that I didn’t mean to attack you back there. I know you do the best you can. I know that she’d be worse off with someone else in your chair. I know that. Sometimes, it just doesn’t seem fair to me and I take it personally.” When it came to her victims and Casey, all she could ever be was passionate.  She hadn’t gotten by in life feeling by half-measures.

                Her ADA seemed to brighten as she said, “I know. That’s one of the things I like about you.”  For a moment, Liv wasn’t sure whether Casey was responding to her thoughts or her words.  Reason won out and she ran with it.

                “There’s more than one? I’m surprised to hear there’s even one.” She really was.  Too many days went by in which she wasn’t sure Casey respected her much less liked her.  If there was a list, she’d love to have it, for a reference at the very least.

                Casey turned and pushed the down button.  “Trust me, there’s plenty,” she retorted in a voice that had to carry the smile Liv wasn’t nearly familiar enough with.  She rolled her neck as she waited, the tension seeming to catch up with her as easily as Liv had.

The urge to massage the weariness from her shoulders reared its intrusive head and Liv forced herself to take a step back.  Today of all days, she was struggling to keep her cool with regard to Casey Novak. She was wrestling with a gnawing anxiety that told her to pull the woman close and not let go.  It was new and stronger than she would have thought possible.  Mostly, she just wanted to say so.

“You’ll have to share the list with me sometime” was as close a she came, as honest as she could be.  She wasn’t all that sure who was biting her tongue anymore but a time never seemed to come when she could say what she really wanted to, like, _“Don’t go.”_   She hadn’t found it in her to say that yet.

 “If you think you can handle it,” quipped her ADA as the doors between them came sliding to a close. At least she’d never be able to say that Casey didn’t reward compromise.    Everything about the way Casey had looked at her just then was reward enough.

Liv let out a deep breath and whispered, “Stay.”

It was progress.


	3. Chapter 3

                Liv wasn’t all there in the field.  Her mind was distracted with her gut and her gut was distracted with a certain assistant district attorney in obvious distress.  Something was very wrong and she was determined to figure out what.  In the meantime, however, she had a job to do, even if worrying made it a little bit harder.

                They were on their way to retrieve Edgar Doliver for questioning. His file had pegged him as a mid-sized man of slender build and moderate temper as judged by the officers who’d arrested him in the past—for solicitation.  He wasn’t a pro, but he _was_ a pimp.  It took a special kind of man to be that slight and yet still put fear in the hearts of women and children.  Liv already couldn’t stand him.  He was Elliot’s to handle; her own temper didn’t feel particularly moderate today.

                For that reason, she hung back and let Elliot take the lead as they were approaching the immaculate house in the immaculate neighborhood which housed a particularly well put-together kiddie sex ring kingpin.  They knocked on the door and, after a shuffling of curtains that a mime would have thought lacked subtlety, it was opened by a slight woman with light hair, wearing jewelry that had to cost more than she and Elliot made in a year.

                “May I help you,” she asked in perfect, if accented, English. They flashed their badges.

                “I’m Detective Benson. This is my partner, Detective Stabler.  We need to speak with Edgar Doliver.”

                “Regarding what, if I may ask?”

                Liv and Elliot looked at each other for a moment. “That’s something we really need to discuss with Mr. Doliver, ma’am,” he answered for the both of them.  She looked them both over closely before nodding and backing out of the doorway to let them inside.

                “He’s in his office upstairs. I’ll get him for you. Please, wait in the den,” she gestured towards a room through an archway on the right. Liv nodded and followed Elliot inside.

                If she’d been all there, she might have noticed the glinting reflection in the china cabinet windows.

                She wasn’t all there—but Elliot was. He threw himself to the right, shouting her name. She saw the flash of the gun before she heard its report.

                The cabinet’s windows shattered as she slammed backwards into them.  Then, she wasn’t there at all.

~!~

She had the odd, familiar sense of being moved; the bumpy roads and muffled sirens, the litany of “Hang on, partner” from Elliot that never got old.  She’d been here before and, just as last time, it was completely unnecessary.

                There wasn’t a word for the kind of pain she was feeling. It was akin to paralysis without the benefit of numbness. Her nerves were alive, thrumming and responding to the stimulus telling them she was injured. They, in turn, were attempting to tell her brain.  Liv wished she could tell them, “Message received,” so they’d stop trying.  Injury she could endure, but the pain always did a number on her.

                That was probably what caused the shock. First, she shivered like an egg-timer on ‘0’. Next, the cold swept in as if it was late for a very important date. Finally, came the blur—her vision clouded, beginning at the edges and working its way to the center.  Right before the haze took over completely, she saw her partner giving her that look and telling her not to let go.  Her eyes rolled to the back of her head.  She’d never been great at taking orders.

                There was some good news, though: her nerves had run out of things to say.

~!~

                Liv had to take the bad news along with the good.  Hours later, her nerves were back to shouting, and so was her partner.

                He was at her side, expression haunted and drawn, reading her the Riot Act.  “Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what your deal is anymore, but it has to stop. You could have died today. I swear to God, you _should_ have died today. Somebody clearly wants you here, but you won’t be for long if you don’t learn to leave your feelings off the clock.” He rubbed his face and began to fidget restlessly. “If you love Casey—and I know you do, don’t deny it—tell her, Liv.  Before it gets you killed, or _me_ killed. I love ya, partner. I always have. But I have a family and a life to live. I won’t have it end because of you. Do you understand?” He looked as pained to say it as she was to hear it.

                She nodded, at a loss for words.  He was right and she knew it.  Her life hadn’t been the only one at stake today.  She’d been so busy puzzling out her ADA that she’d let her partner and, admittedly, best friend walk into the path of pervert with a pistol.  What might have been wasn’t something she could have lived with.  And telling Kathy—she closed her eyes against the scenario that played, regardless, in her head.

                Liv was the one sporting the bullet, yet it was their relationship that showed the damage.

                “I’ll fix this,” she told him.

                “You’d better,” he replied.

                With that, he was gone; the warm place on her cheek where he’d kissed her all that remained.


	4. Chapter 4

                 _A touch…._

                Liv didn’t know what it was, but she felt overwhelmed.  She could see her copper hair lit up by the UV lights overhead.  Her skin was ashen in the same light.  Liv knew she had to be the one dying, but she also knew she wasn’t the one who looked like Death. She gasped softly when she recognized the eyes. Her name died on her chapped lips.

                It hadn’t been long but she knew that her gut had been right: from the moment Casey walked into the squad room this morning—yesterday morning, whenever—she’d been on borrowed time.  Like the ink in a fountain pen just before it ran dry.  The color began to lighten and streak, as thin and anemic as blood could be.  That was Casey, lightened and streaked.

                Here was Liv, with too much morphine in her system and cotton in her mouth. This confession was already falling apart. This confession would not take place tonight. She smiled instead and hoped it was the comfort Liv meant it to be. Casey had always taken her detectives’ injuries too personally; the last thing she could afford to lose was anymore sleep.

                Casey seemed to take a fortifying breath. Then, she began to speak.  It was all a jumble to Liv’s ears, but Casey’s expression drew her in.  She was a composition of terror and determination.  Even when Liv felt the drugs begin to drag her into their fog, Casey didn’t give up.  Liv smiled a little. _She really has it bad for a lost cause,_ Liv hazily mused _._   Still, she enjoyed the sensation of the ADA’s hand on her cheek as she tried once again to rouse her.

                Liv managed to get hooked on her eyes. They were shimmering, almost glowing and Liv couldn’t look away.  When Casey spoke again, Liv actually heard her this time.

“Liv, if you could have one thing you desired above all else, what would it be?”

She heard her and, yet, was no more enlightened than she’d been before.  Even if her tongue didn’t weigh a ton, even if her eyes weren’t slowly beginning to cross from the effects of the sedative, she couldn’t have answered. What did she want? Liv had more wants than words and time to have it all.

She wanted world peace. She wanted all the kiddie kingpins off the streets and all perps dead on arrival.  She wanted to sleep at night without needing meds to get through it.  She wanted Casey to look like she had one more day left in her instead of like she was on her last leg.  She wanted all of these things but couldn’t say a single one.  _Maybe tomorrow_ , she thought and hoped that then Casey would still be willing to listen.

Casey spoke again, desperation as Liv knew it, tingeing her voice through the cracks.  She spoke and spoke and Liv tried to listen. It was just so hard when the distance was so pretty. Her gaze drifted away from the green of Casey’s eyes as if by magnetic attraction.  It was beautiful but colder away from her. She shuddered deep down at the change.

As if in response to her chill, the most familiar vision of ice came to mind: Blue eyes that could be as dispassionate as they could be kind, eyes that belied all appearances with their warmth.  She visualized them so clearly that she could almost see them.

She could absolutely see them. Trapped behind no nonsense frames and framed by hair the color of corn silk, they were staring right through her. Liv hadn’t seen her so clearly since the last time she walked into her life before walking right out. She hadn’t thought she ever would.

“Alex,” she rasped, tripping over the name she’d forced herself to forget not so long ago.  _She isn’t real_ , she told herself in spite of what she saw.  In Witness Protection, Alexandra Cabot had ceased to exist and, with her, so had their relationship.  That didn’t mean that Liv had forgotten, even if Alex was _Emily_ now.

“Casey,” said the woman formerly known as Emily.

“Alex,” said the woman who’d seemed to disappear as soon as Alex had re-appeared. They exchanged pleasantries that died painless deaths.

The moment of silence stretched thin between them and, then, something seemed to shift.  Liv felt it in the air, in the pressure on her shoulder, the place where Casey’s fingers lingered.  They lifted slowly, loosened their hold, and relinquished their place.  She let go and began to leave.

                She didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t even look back. With the swing of her coat, she was out of sight and Liv couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t asked her to stay. She felt like she must have gone out of her mind.

                Staring, dumbfounded, at her favorite ghost, she thought she must have been hallucinating—something in the drugs was playing cruel tricks. There was no way that was the Alex she’d known before.

                But it was.  When that hand caught hers, she knew.

                “You came back,” she whispered, still disbelieving.  She didn’t get her wishes granted, that was just life as she’d always known it.  Someone upstairs must have forgiven her for not believing.

                “Yeah.” Grasping her hand tight, Alex sat right next to her in bed.  She was so close that Liv could see every shade of blue in her eyes.  She’d forgotten how bright they were. God, how could she have forgotten?

                “I don’t understand. The Witness Protection, your new life—”

                “Not as important, not nearly as important as the phone call I got telling me you’d been hurt. Five years, Liv. New life or no, I couldn’t take the chance that I wouldn’t see you again.  I got in a car and I drove.  I didn’t stop till I hit the city limits.”  Alex brushed her fingers across Liv’s forehead, faintly imitating Casey’s last soft touch.

                “You could have been killed,” Liv said, looking away.  “I never would have been worth that.”

                “Maybe not to you, but to me you would have been,” Alex countered.  “To me, you are.”

                Liv squeezed Alex’s hand silently.  She couldn’t think of anything else to say.  Alex had been willing to die to see her again. What could top that?

                She didn’t know and couldn’t ask.  How could she say, _I’m so happy to see you, but your timing is horrible_?  How could she ask her to call up Elliot so that she could have him call up Casey?  How could she explain the way her heart leapt every time she thought she spied a flash of red hair out of the corner of her eye? She couldn’t, not a little, not at all.  So, she didn’t try.

                In hindsight, though, she wished she’d tried a little harder.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters recognizable as being from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. They are the property of their respective producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
> 
> Based on Joshua Radin's "Wish You Away".
> 
> If you guys wanna talk/flail/flop with me on Tumblr, I'm [sententiousandbellicose](http://sententiousandbellicose.tumblr.com).


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